Asher P.O.V:
I left the orchestra room with my cello case on my back. The idea of a partner wandering through my head as I walked down the spiral staircase to my dorm. I did pretty well in group projects so I guess I might be good at this too.
When I got there I saw a soft yellow envelope waiting to be opened. Taking a deep breath, hoping I didn't get stuck with an idiot who doesn't understand music theory. I opened the envelope, 'Maria Williams, Time: 4:30, Make your own duet" with a rubric attached to it which went into the details of the assignment.
Maria, huh according to Jay she was a stuck up know it all, but I guess I'll find out if that's true on my own. I check my watch, 15 minutes until my practice session with her. Pocketing the envelope I ran downstairs. Better be earlier than late.
I opened the door to the hot and sweaty practice to find it empty besides some chairs and some stands. Figures I'm early after all.
I sighed as I unpacked and set the stand up only to see it slowly go down. Groaning, I switched out the stand and finished setting up. Then I went through warm ups and was about to move on to shifting and scales when I heard the door quietly open.
"Hello there Maria," I greeted her with a quick smile. She just stared at me blankly and didn't say a word. Maybe she's just shy.
Or somehow you did something to offend her.
"Why don't you unpack so we can start", I suggested, wanting to break the awkward silence. She nodded in acknowledgment and turned on her heel to unpack. She unpacked and tuned while I flipped through the music that I had in my binder.
"Okay, let's test each other's skills to see how difficult we can make the piece,'' spoke Maria suddenly. I turned my head towards her in surprise. So she speaks, well this makes things a lot easier.
I nodded in agreement. "Should we use the pieces that we are playing in Orchestra or the concertos," She added on.
"Orchestra music, definitely," I replied. "Should we do the Tchaikovsky Serenade of the Strings since it is the piece we are working on currently?"
"Yeah, that would be a good idea" she agreed." We should do the first page only to save time. Should I go first or should you?".
"You can go first," I responded. She nodded as she flipped to the page in her binder and set it back on her stand. Maria took a deep breath as she set her Viola on her shoulder, bow in the middle of the distance between her bridge and fingerboard. She acknowledged me with a nod and started playing.
The familiar tune echoed across the room. At least part of it since Maria was a Viola player after all. She played gracefully and you could tell she was into the music.
On the occasional slip up she didn't make a weird facial expression like I did when I played. She just stayed calm and kept on going though it did affect her playing afterwards.
It was smooth throughout however and was nice to listen too.
When Maria finished the room that was filled with the lovely music was then filled with an empty silence.
"How did I do?" she asked as she set her viola down into the case, loosened the bow and set her shoulder rest and raisin into the case. She whipped her viola but forgot to but the cloth back in.
"Fantastic, on the occasional mistake you would slightly speed up" I replied. Then quickly added "Just practice that passage right there it was the only place where that happened.".
"Thank you for your criticism, it's time for you to play" she said as she circled the passage I told her needs work.
She talks very formally. Though I figured it might be rude to tell her.
Taking a deep breathe I went right in. That beginning was pizzicato and I was fine during this part since I had practiced a lot.
Actually I had practiced the first page a lot in total so I was confident. When I moved back to bowing I glanced at Maria and she had a total poker face on.
Great, I was stuck with an emotionless partner. Or maybe she was analyzing which was good. I decided to go with the latter.
The first page came to a close and put my bow done.
"How did I do and don't hold back!" I told her.
"Good, " she replied in a soft voice. I guess I did good.
"Yes! Well, do you want to start planning the theme of the duet?" I offered.
"Do you have any ideas?" she questioned.
"Zero!" I grinned stupidly as she nodded clearly having an idea of her own.
"Well, what type of music do you like?"
"Classical, duh!"
"I meant do you like music that is upbeat like jazz or music that has some sort of sadness to it, like-"
"Anything that catches my attention, I like to listen to all kinds of music but most rap is trash. Also I like Jazz. But I have exceptions"
"For me it depends on my mood, for example if I'm sad I like to listen to 'sad' music," she says shrugging.
"Same here" I agree "So seriously any ideas I can tell you have something in mind." She looked surprised at that.
"Well, I was thinking something mellow, for example, something that transcends from happiness into a sophisticated realm," her eyes seemed to glistened over as she said this.
"I see but define sophisticated,"
"Trapped, but normal, basically music that seems happy but has a dark undertone, you know a happy melody but a sad support?"
"That not sophisticated that more like suffocating but pretending it not happening"
"Well isn't that the human definition for suffocated? The dictionary says someone poised, but a human's definition changes from person to person, music is about putting yourself in the piece, so I'm just putting my definition of sophisticated in our piece, you may add whatever you want,"
Well that's the most I ever heard her speak.
"Well I suppose in a way after all words are made up and given a certain meaning. A meaning I usually agree on. But people tend to add personal feelings to them like you, adding the feeling of suffocation to sophistication."
I take a deep breath and continue "But that doesn't change the meaning. So I'm going to ask you, you are a very sophisticated person you like to speak formally so by doing this do you feel like you're suffocating yourself?" she smiled softly at this.
"Maybe and maybe not, my feelings aren't something I like to talk about. I also would like you to call me polite, not sophisticated, I'm just careful with the way I say things," she smiled and looked at me. "But yes, the meaning of the word sophisticated will remain the same for generations, but feelings are what makes a word unique, don't you agree?"
"That heavy opinion I guess in some cases it works" she's clearly avoiding my question.
"I'm glad you feel more relaxed around me when you first saw me you looked like you wanted to run out of the room." I say as I smile at her.
"Well, I never really stated I'm more comfortable around you but we can go with that if it makes you feel better," she said cautiously.
"Liar, but I can go with it" I grinned at her and to my surprise she instead of those soft smiles she gave me a full on grin. It looked nice on her.
"Well, Mr. Asher, it seems like you have succeeded in making me smile, congratulations," she said softly.
"We got off track where were we?" I shook my head
"Theme?" she offered.
"Yup, Happy but a dark undertone right?"
"I see you remember, yes, but you have to add a piece of you as well," she said in a warm but seemingly fake voice.
Happy but dark undertone and she said she wasn't going to give anything away.
"I'll add when we start writing, but for now, jazz," I saw a small smirk on her face as I said this but quickly smiled again, "incorrect notes always make me feel wonderful. Now do you have any experience with duets?"
"I have, do you?"
"Yeah I did a lot of competitions including duets."
"Really, were you good?"
"I guess so, I did win most of them," I said bashfully. It was true I was excellent and I love competitions.
"Well I never really won a lot, there was this one time I slipped up." she said. I know she slipped up purposely that one time, it seemed like she would only mess up is if she messed up purposely, at least most of the time.
"Maria you liar I know you won a lot more than just a few. Jay is basically my best friend, he told me" she laughed softly.
"Busted," she said once she stopped.
"So you did competitions but what about duets?"
"Yes, I did do duets,"
"You have to tell me more than that like were you good, were you bad, do you not do well in partners, have you ever written music. Stuff like that?"
"It depends on the partner, and I have written music before, but I don't like sharing it," she said politely. Great, we're back at stage 1 with her.
"I'm not getting anything out of you and this first meeting we were supposed to establish a theme and I guess we did that though." In the envelope the conductor had given us a timeline to help us plan.
"Was there anything you wanted to accomplish?" she asked with a knowing tone.
She doesn't really understand this part of duets.
"When you play a duet with someone you don't just have to know how well they play. We're pretty even there but you also have to know their tendencies when they play. Basically you have to know the person and you're making it kinda hard. That's what one of the goals were today. Get to know your partner." Did she not read the whole schedule.
"Well what else do you want to know about me? I've told you about almost everything," she was hiding something behind that mask of hers, I just know it!
"What I mean is put down that mask of yours at least a little bit. I don't need to know everything about you. I just need you to be comfortable telling at least a few things about" she really just doesn't get it does she.
"What mask?"
"I'm not stupid anyone with two brain cell can tell. But I suppose I shouldn't force you after all. However you can relax around me I don't make a habit of telling people secrets."
"I never said I didn't trust and I never said I did trust you may be the person you're seeing is me and maybe the person you are seeing is not me, only time will tell,"
"Maria, as smart as you are, you don't realize the amount of information you already have given me from the sentence you just spoke. You're not as discreet as you though. But don't worry I'm not one to make a big deal out of things like this."
"Who told you I didn't want to give you that information," her eyes seemed sad and her face seemed surprised, for her mask has finally fallen.
"You did," I grinned, "But didn't I tell you I don't make big deals out of everything? I guess you'll get more comfortable with me in time." I shrugged and I wasn't lying. Literally the only reason I was asking her all of this was for the duet.
"Asher, I don't know what you are talking about, so unless you have something I can accept, let's talk about something else,"
"Something you can accept?" This girl is really something else.
"Do you want me to phrase it in a different way?" I could tell something was trapped in her, and it's definitely stupidity. She started laughing but stopped quickly. Why did she laugh?
"You know what I'll leave it at that I probably figure it out judging from the amount of clues you've dropped in one conversation. So back to the duet we can define the theme a bit more and how we're going to work it into the piece." she looked like she wanted to say something but instead didn't have a chance to. Because-
BANG! We both turned our heads in surprise towards the door. Is our time up already?
"Hey, your time was up like 5 hours ago, get out." exclaimed the person who could only be Jay. I checked my watch and he was right. We went a tiny bit over time. Whoopsies...
"We made pretty good progress today. Let's hope for the same next week" Progress on your mask too. But I didn't tell her that.
"I agree, and hopefully you'll understand," she said.
I turned toward Jay.
"Couldn't you have knocked a little lighter when you were trying to knock down the door.? I scowled at him
"Sorry man but I was getting desperate, you probably don't have a sense of time" he looked at Maria. "So this is who you are partnered with".
"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.
"Nothing..." he turned around as another voice reached our ears.
"Okay can you guys stop standing around and pack up so we can actually play?" Said a very annoyed Joseph in a French accent who I could only assume was Jay's partner. Jay must be pretty happy about that arrangement based on the smile on his face.
Joseph's black hair shone in the spotlight as he stepped into the room and his eyes looked like they were reading you. Pale skin shimmering with his lips smirking. He looked cool despite the extra couple of pounds.
"Sorry about that," she bent down and closed the case. And exited the room, without her gray cloth that she used to wipe her viola.
I decided it was in my best interests to pack up and not annoy Joseph any more. He had a temper. I put my end pin in.
Then I wiped off any rosin that was in front of my Cello and then put it back in my case then zipped it up. Then I loosened my bow and put it in the pocket that was on the front of the case. I should probably invest in a hard case because the soft case was a pain in the butt.
Then I grabbed the gray cloth off the floor and then got my cello.
"Bye, and Jay don't get too excited" I snorted.
"I don't know what you are talking about" Jay was blushing hard. I snorted.
"Good luck Joseph."
"Wait? what? What do you mean?" My laughter echoed through the halls as I left a blushing Jay and a confused Joseph behind as I tried to catch up to Maria to give her soft clothe.
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Status: Edited
This chapter was written by Viola an Cello.